Night Zookeeper Star Writing Challenge

Night Zoopkeeper is an excellent new site for students to help them w/ their Writing skills through fun interactive lessons/competition.  Also, it has an educational portal that allows educators to: assign lessons, track student progress, and assess their work in real-time.  This makes it easy for teachers to differentiate instruction and implement project based learning in their classroom.

Recently Night Zookeeper announced they are running two different Star Writing Challenges in April, where students will have the chance(s) to get their writing published in the third Night Zookeeper book, The Penguins of Igloo City!

The first challenge is: "Write a report about a magical animal that lives in Igloo City"

As the maximum word allowance is 500 words, students of all ages can take part. These fun, short challenges with great prizes are a great way to excite students and motivate them to write!

More info...

• The first challenge starts on the 1st April.
• Students just have to visit the Star Writing page and click 'accept this mission' to start writing.
• All teachers have to do is publish and nominate their students' writing to their Night Zookeeper class blog by 4pm GMT 15th April.
• You can learn how to publish and nominate student writing by watching this 20 second tutorial video.
• The second challenge will be announced when the first one ends, on 15th April.
• Students are allowed to enter both of the April challenges!
• The winners will be revealed in an exciting live storytelling event on Facebook at the end of April!

Click here for more info about Star Writing!!!

I highly recommend checking out Night Zookeeper by clicking here!!!

Click here for more info!!!

I highly recommend checking out Night Zookeeper by clicking here!!!

Brainstormer

Brainstormer is a fun little iOS app that is ideal for brainstorming by spinning a wheel.  This wheel has 3 categories such as: theme, setting, and location, and is ideal for generating writing prompts.

I highly recommend checking out Brainstormer by clicking here!!!

For my Pinterest board on Educational iOS apps, click here.
For my Pinterest board on Brainstorming & Mindmapping, click here.

ClassHook Update

ClassHook is an innovative new site for finding educational videos/clips that I was just reminded of by Monica Burns blog. ClassHook is a search engine for finding educational video clips through popular media.  It searches through TV shows, movies, and other forms of entertainment to bring educational clips to educators.  Best of all an educator can search through different subjects and each video displays wether it is for El Ed, MS, HS, etc.  They just released an update where a user can enable a "profanity skipper" so that each video is safe from swear words.  Try it here.

I highly recommend checking out ClassHook by clicking here!!!

For my Pinterest board on Digital Video Resources click here.

*Help ClassHook win a small business grant from FedEx by voting here!!!

Super Teacher Worksheets for Easter

*Be Sure to check out the printable activities on Easter.

Super Teacher Worksheets is one of the best sites around for finding educational resources on a wide range of subjects.  Educators can find, worksheets, printables, puzzle generators and more.  Also, they are constantly updating their site w/ more resources all the time and recently released new crossword puzzle worksheet generator.

I highly recommend checking out Super Teacher Worksheets by clicking here!!!

For my Pinterest board on Educational Resources click here.

*Super Teacher Worksheets is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Zanifesto

Zanifesto is a wonderful site for creating infographics that I just found out about from Richard Byrne's award winning blog.  Zanifesto allows users to easily add text or images to create stunning infographics.  Also, there is a wide range of templates and examples to browse/choose from.  Educators are using infographics in a wide range of ways from message announcements, to
introducing topics, and more.

I highly recommend checking out Zanifesto by clicking here!!!

30hands Learning

30hands Learning is the excellent company for creating an innovative LMS (Learning Management System) as well as the popular mobile iOS app that is ideal for digital storytelling 30hands Pro.  The 30hands community is a perfect cloud based solution that allows educators to: manage/track students, hand in/out assignments, schedule events, and more.  While the mobile is being used in education for project based learning, digital storytelling, and more.

30hands has lots of exciting news on the horizon...

After upgrading to Pro, users will have access to existing advanced features and new features in the works:

• Video clips as slides

• Google Drive + Dropbox Integration

• Importing of Google Slides and PDFs as 30hands slides

• Backgrounds and scenes

• Higher quality videos

• Advanced drag-and-drop drawing with editing 

• Slide sharing with parents and students 

• Slide Transitions 

• Unlimited presentations

• Unlimited saves to Camera Roll

Districts that purchase 30hands Pro will get free or discounted professional development (depending on licenses purchased). The PD can be onsite or virtual and selected from our areas of expertise: Digital Storytelling, PBL, Blended Learning, Teaching Coding, and Teaching Entrepreneurship. 

For more info on how your school can participate, email info@30hands.com.

Join our newsletter here: http://30hands.com/newsletter.

*30hands Learning is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

StudyBlue

StudyBlue is a site I've covered in the past that has just released some new information.  I'm going to quote it straight from their email as they say it best....

"StudyBlue®, a mobile and online study service, has released new functionality that enables students to quickly share and compare their explanations with those of their peers. Designed for students from middle school to medical school, StudyBlue is the best way to store, study, share and ultimately master course material – for free."

StudyBlue is an excellent service for moblie learning and online studying.  This is all free and can be done to share, store, and collaborate on learning material.  Also, w/ an innovative flashcard system, it allows users to study, practice, and take quizzes on the go.

I highly recommend checking out StudyBlue by clicking here!!!

Flocabulary

Flocabulary is a fun Web 2.0 site for education that I've mentioned a few times on my blog.  This is a great site for introducing or reviewing a subject/concept.  The way this works is through innovative animated videos (or as Flocabulary puts it "Educational Hip-Hop"), that helps students learn through visual and auditory means.  Also, Flocabulary has over 700 videos, interactive activities, and online assessments.

Also, there are some great features that make Flocabulary perfect for the classroom.  For example, the lyrics of each song are displayed below the video and are interactive filled w/ words that are hot-linked to explore in more detail.  The lyrics can also be downloaded or printed out.  Best of all, are the lessons that are included w/ each video to help students reinforce their learning on each topic.

I highly recommend checking out Flocabulary by clicking here!!!

For my Pinterest board on Web 2.0 click here.
For my Edshelf collection on Web 2.0 click here.

Timelinely

Timelinely is a new (beta) site for editing YouTube videos that I found out about from Larry Ferlazzo's blog.  Timelinely easily lets users take a YouTube video and add comments, images, annotations and more.  This is a great way to personalize a video and can even be used for digital storytelling.

I highly recommend checking out Timelinely by clicking here!!!

Edcite

Edcite is an innovative site for creating digital assignments that I learned about from Monica Burns excellent blog.  Edcite allows educators to create digital assignments/quizzes from over 60 different question types (i.e. drag-n-drop, short answer, matching, etc.).  Best of all, Edcite can automatically grade student responses in real-time and generates detailed reports which allows teachers to differentiate instruction.

Below is a brief demo...



I highly recommend checking out Edcite by clicking here!!!

BoomWriter Summer Camps

Summer is almost here and BoomWriter's Virtual Summer Camps are right around the corner and a soon to be reality for educators!!! This is an excellent solution for teachers looking to make some extra money over the summer (from the comfort of their own home) using BoomWriter's innovative collaborative writing tool.

More info below...

BoomWriter is a site that I’ve written about many times because it lets elementary, middle, and high school teachers conduct engaging nonfiction, fiction, and vocabulary development group-writing activities in almost any subject area. But their new offering is not just another product- it’s a chance for teachers to completely change how they make money (and relax) over the summer!

BoomWriter announced a while back, that they are developing The BoomWriter Virtual Summer Camp to create engaging, flexible, and profitable experiences for teachers as they work to make extra money over the summer. Teachers can make upwards of $1,200 per week with their camp by facilitating online instruction and writing activities for campers in Grades 4-9 using BoomWriter’s easy to use group writing site.

At $0 cost to teachers, BoomWriter will provide the curriculum, camper sign-up web page, and everything else needed to run a camp, so all teachers have to do is recruit students from their own schools or learning communities to participate. Educators can run as many sessions as they want from wherever they want and truly become their own boss on their own schedule.

Register for their mailing list to receive more information and updates to get you ready for Summer of 2018. BoomWriter is a free site that keeps finding new and better ways to support teachers through technology, and The BoomWriter Virtual Summer Camp is no exception!

I highly recommend checking out BoomWriter Virtual Summer Camps by clicking here!!!

View a sample Virtual Summer Camp "splash page" by clicking here.

Below is a brief video...


Also, check out the BoomWriter community to engage w/ other educators about their summer camps as well as other ways to incorporate BW into their curriculum by clicking here!!!

*BoomWriter is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

Math Leaper

Math Leaper is a fun free iOS app for Math grades PreK-8th.  The object is to jump higher and higher while answering questions correctly and collection power-ups while avoiding slime.  Math Leaper focuses on lots of different areas such as: addition, multiplication, algebra, etc and has detailed
progress reports.

I highly recommend checking out Math Leaper by clicking here!!!

Social Story Videos by Storyboard That

Storyboard That is an amazing learning tool that educators around the world are using for digital storytelling, timelines, storyboards, graphic organizers, and more.  Recently, they announced their latest way to use Storyboard That and that is to create innovative Social Story Videos.

Below is a brief demo sample...



Click here for a great list of digital story ideas by Storyboard That.

Create your own stories by clicking here!!!

*Storyboard That is an advertiser of Technology Tidbits.

RoomRecess

RoomRecess is one of my all time favorite sites for finding a wide variety of educational online games.  This is a great place for finding games in subjects such as: Math, Reading, Keyboarding, and more. These games are designed for students K-5 and are easy to play w/ high replay value.  Educators can find lots of useful free games that will help reinforce skills (i.e. Typing, Spelling, Basic Math Skills)

I highly recommend checking out RoomRecess by clicking here!!!

Below is a demo video...



For my Pinterest board on Educational Online Games click here.
For my Edshelf collection on Educational Online Games click here.